Minutes with Alan

The Promise Of Spring

One of the great joys of living in Arizona is that, most years, during the months when much of the country is huddled in coats and braving icy winds, we enjoy what amounts to an almost uninterrupted spring. We walk about in shirt sleeves, bask in the sunshine, and sometimes forget that the rest of the population is counting the overcast days till Easter.

I have lived in other parts of the country, though, and know how dark those winter months can be. Sometimes the bleak weeks run on for so long that springtime and summer seem like distant memories. But year after year, the birds and the blossoms return, fulﬁlling the promise of God in Genesis 8:22:

“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”

God oﬀered that promise to mankind after the ﬂood …and it’s a good promise for Christians to cling to, in this year that has seen so many of our convictions and legal strongholds engulfed by a new regime in Washington that stands in stark opposition to the teachings of Scripture (and the will of the voters) with regard to life, marriage, and religious freedom.

I hear regularly from allies and Ministry Friends who are convinced that the Deluge has come, and that the hard work of 15 years is being rapidly swept away by the raging currents of legal persecution and philosophical intolerance for all things Christian.

But it’s not as bad as all that. Bad, yes – but not as bad as all that. Our God is sovereign, His Truth is still true, and as He told a despairing Elijah (1 Kings 19:18), there remain many thousands who have never bowed down to Baal.

Not every judge is an activist. Not every school board or city council member is determined to drive God from the public square. Not every state legislator or member of Congress is embracing the homosexual agenda or contemptuous of the sanctity of life.

"I know how dark those winter months can be."

And ADF, by God's grace, is still winning many crucial cases... and going to win many more in the months ahead. Summer will bring new classes to our National Litigation Academy and Blackstone Legal Fellowship (see p. 15), and with them the joyful reminder that our nation is still producing gifted legal minds that are serious about restoring religious liberty to our judicial system.

Yes, these are cold, hard days for those who take God’s Truth seriously. But hold on to what you know. Springtime follows winter. And more victories are coming.